SiPLABoratory

Underwater Acoustic Network (UAN - 225669)

UAN objective is to conceive, develop and test at sea an innovative wireless network integrating submerged, terrestrial and aerial sensors for the protection of off-shore and coastline critical infrastructures. This project is funded by EU under FP7 Collaborative project ICT/Security with 2.95 MEuro for 3 years. Starting date: October 1st, 2008. Partnership: CINTAL - Centro de Investigação Tecnológica do Algarve (coordinator), SSI - Selex Sistemi Integrati (Italy), Stifetsen SINTEF ICT (Norway), ISME - Interuniversity Centre of Integrated Systems for the Marine Environment (Italy), Swedish Defence Research Agency FOI (Sweden) and Kongsberg Maritime (Norway). People involved: A.Silva, P.Felisberto, S.M.Jesus (CINTAL), M.Cresta, R.Massimeli (SSI), T.Reinen, J.Hovem, E.Kampenhoy (SINTEF), A.Caiti, A.Trucco and M.Palmeses (ISME), I.Karasalo, L.Abrahamsson, T.Oberg (FOI), Thor Husoy and Jan-Erik Faugstadmo (KM). [official UAN project web site [...more]
Project terminated in September 30, 2011.

Wave Energy Acoustic Monitoring (WEAM - PTDC/ENR/70452/2006)

WEAM aims at developing, testing and validating a monitoring system for determining underwater acoustic noise generated by wave energy-based generators and its impact in the sea fauna of. This study will be able to extend noise predictions to farms of wave generators with pre-determinined configurations. This project is financed by PTDC programme, with 182.4 kEuro for 3 years. Starting date: November 1st, 2007. Partnership: WEC - Wave Energy Center (coordinator) and CINTAL - Centro de Investigação Tecnológica do Algarve. People involved: A. Sarmento (coordinator), S. Patrício (WEC), C. Soares and S.M. Jesus (CINTAL). [...more]
Project terminated in April 30, 2011.

Probabilistic High-Frequency Ocean Tomography for Underwater Communications and Navigation
(PHITOM - PTDC/EEA-TEL/71263/2006)

PHITOM aims at developing and applying techniques of ocean acoustic tomography (OAT) to the HF signals used in digital communications incorporating into the receiver some awareness of the environment and the spatial configuration of the acoustic link that is almo current underwater modems. Having this capability built into the receiver is very appealing for a number of reasons. This project is financed by the PTDC programme, with 172 kEuro for 3 years. Starting date: December 1st, 2007. Partnership: Instituto Superior Tecnico - IST (coordinator) and Centro de Investigação Tecnológica do Algarve (CINTAL). People involved: J.P. Gomes (coordinator), J. Xavier (IST), A. Gomes and S.M. Jesus (CINTAL). [...more]
Project terminated in May 31, 2011.

Non-cooperant Underwater Acoustic Channel Estimation (NUACE)

NUACE aims at developing, testing and validating environmental based techniques for determining the underwater channel impulse response for matched-filtering and channel equalization usage in MFP and Time-Reversal methods. Applications sought are target detection and localization as well as underwater communications. This project was funded by POSI programme, with 97.5 kEuro for 3 years. Starting date: January 1st, 2004. Partnership: CINTAL (coordinator) and Instituto Hidrográfico (Lisbon). People involved: S.M. Jesus, C. Soares and A. Silva (CINTAL), and J. Onofre (IH). [...more]
Project terminated in September 30, 2007.

Environmental assessment with a Random Array of Acoustic Receivers (RADAR)

RADAR follows under the steps of the AOB-REA (see below) and aims to develop of a random system of acoustic receivers for estimating the equivalent environmental model best describing the acoustic field. This project was funded by POCTI programme, with 80 kEuro for 3 years. Starting date: October 1st, 2004. Partnership: CINTAL (coordinator) and Instituto Hidrográfico (Lisbon). People involved: S.M. Jesus, A. Silva, F. Zabel and C. Martins (CINTAL), and J. Onofre (IH).[...more]
Project terminated in September 30, 2007.

Underwater Acoustic Barriers (UAB)

UAB aims at studying, develop and test in the field the concept of an underwater acoustic barrier for detecting intruders in a given area, that can be an harbour, bay, or strait. This project is financed by the POCTI programme, with 72 keuros for 2 years. Starting date: January 1st, 2006. Coordinator: S.M. Jesus (CINTAL). Participants: J. Onofre (Instituto Hidrográfico, Lisbon). People involved from SiPLAB: S.M. Jesus, A. Silva, F. Zabel and C. Martins (CINTAL). [...more]
Project terminated in December 31, 2007.

Acoustic Tomography Monitoring System (ATOMS)

The ATOMS project aims at developing an integrated system for large-scale ocean monitoring, using acoustic tomography. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach, an experimental test will be performed to characterize the upwelling filament structure off the Cape São Vicente. This project is financed by the POCTI programme, with 350 keuros for 4 years. Starting date: October 1st, 2000.Coordinator: S.M. Jesus (CINTAL). Participants: J. Onofre (Instituto Hidrográfico, Lisbon), P. Relvas (Univ. of Algarve) and P. Felisberto (Univ. Algarve). [...more]
Project terminated in December 31, 2004.

Passive Localization (Locapass)

LOCAPASS project main objective is to develop an acoustic passive localization integrated system using a single or a reduced number of acoustic sensors. The principle is based on the usage of the environmental information modeled by a numerical propagation model in order to discriminate the perturbation induced by the active sound source. This project is financed by FUP - Ministry of Defence (Portugal), with 25 keuros for 1.5 year. Starting date: July 1st, 2001. Coordinator: S.M. Jesus (CINTAL). Participants: Instituto Hidrográfico (Lisbon), SACLANTCEN (La Spezia, Italy). People involved from SiPLAB: S.M. Jesus, A. Silva and C. Soares (CINTAL). [...more]
Project terminated in July 31, 2003.

Coastal Passive Tomography (TOMPACO)

The main objective of this project is to develop a new method for underwater acoustic tomography that uses as source signal the noise emitted by ships of opportunity, received on vertical arrays distributed along the coast, with the objective of measuring the water temperature and currents of oceanographic interest. This project was done under contract from DUNE (Italy). Starting date: June 1st, 1999. Coordinator: Otello Gasparini (DUNE, Italy), Participants: Pierluigi Rosseto (Thetis, Italy), Alessandro Crise (OGS, Trieste, Italy) and under contract S.M. Jesus (CINTAL). People involved from SiPLAB: S.M. Jesus, O. Rodriguez, C. Lopes and P. Felisberto. [...more]
Project terminated in April 30, 2003.

Internal Tide Monitoring through Acoustic Tomography Experiments (INTIMATE)

Today acoustics is one of the main tools for ocean exploration. Inspired by a technique from biomedical engineering, Ocean Acoustical Tomography (OAT) consists of the use of one or more acoustic sensors/sources strategically distributed in a volume of water and simultaneously emitting and receiving coded signals. The ``comparison'' of the emitted and received signals allows for the acoustical characterization of the environment in between the source(s) and the receiver(s). The experiments that have been performed to date, mainly in deep water, showed that it is possible to estimate: (1) the temperature over the water column, (2) the physical characteristics of the sea bottom and (3) the velocity and direction of currents. This project is financed by the PRAXIS XXI program, with 225 keuros for 3 years. Starting date: January 1st, 1997. Coordinator: S.M. Jesus (CINTAL). Participants: E. Coelho (Instituto Hidrográfico, Lisbon), Y. Stephan (CMO-SHOM) and M. Porter (NJIT). [...more]
Project terminated in December 31, 2000.

Development of Vehicles and Advanced Systems for the Execution of Underwater Inspection Tasks (INFANTE)

The objectives of this project are the design and the construction of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), and the development and integration of advanced systems for navigation, guidance and control, acoustic communications and mission management. These systems will be tested in the lab. Once they are installed in the vehicle, they will be also tested in pool and sea trials. This project was financed by the PRAXIS XXI programme, with 255 keuros for 3 years. Starting date: May 1st, 1997. Coordinator: A. Pascoal (IST). Participants: RINAVE, S.M. Jesus (CINTAL), E. Coelho (Instituto Hidrográfico, Lisbon). People involved from SiPLAB: S.M. Jesus, A. Silva, C. Lopes and P. Felisberto.[...more]
Project terminated in April 30, 2001.

Geophysical Seafloor Exploration with a Towed Array in Shallow Water

The geophysical properties of marine sediments just beneath the seafloor are of great importance for modelling of coastal areas. Accurate knowledge of these properties allows for correct initialization and testing of environmental models and increase their capability for predicting changes in the morphology of the coastal line. Moreover, a geophysical description of shallow marine sediments is a requirement in a large number of applications, such as environmental monitoring, ecological studies, underwater acoustics, geotechnical exploration and soil stability testing. This project was funded under the European MAST2 programme, with 800 kecu for 3 years. Starting date: January 1st, 1993.Coordinator: S.M. Jesus (UALG). Participants: A. Caiti (Univ. Genova, Italy), H. Zambujo (Instituto Hidrográfico, Lisbon) and A. Kristensen (Saclantcen, Italy). People involved from SiPLAB: S.M. Jesus, O. Rodríguez and P. Felisberto. [...more]
Project terminated in March 30, 1996.

AO-Buoy JRP

This Joint Research Project (JRP) aims at the development and validation of acoustic-oceanographic remote sensing systems and data inversion-integration methods for a reliable, rapid environmental assessment (REA) of shallow water areas. In this project, adapted and newly developed air-dropped sonobuoys will have both acoustic and oceanographic sensors sparsely distributed in depth throughout the useful portion of the water column, referred herein as the AO-buoys. [...more]
Collaboration terminated on 2007

High - Frequency JRP

This collaboration addresses the improvement in understanding the propagation and scattering of high frequency acoustic waves (1-50 kHz) in the presence of oceanographic parameter variability in shallow water regions. This research will benefit understanding of uncertainty in acoustic communication signals due to variability in the environmental physical parameters. The modeling effort seeks to explain, and ultimately predict, the factors that significantly alter operational effectiveness of Acoustic Communications for applications such as the AUV, ASW and MCM detection and classification systems. The obtained knowledge will be utilized to establish basis for Barrier systems, Sonar detection (environmentally adaptive active sonar), AUV communication, AUV based tomography, environmental assessment using passive (ambient noise) array processing and mine counter measure. [...more]
Collaboration terminated on 2006

European Seafloor Observation Network

ESONET is an European Network of Excelence involving over 50 european institutions during 4 years with the aim of laying down the plans and necessary standards for a future network of land connected sites for ocean observation throughout Europe, from the North Sea to the west Mediterrenean. This project is financed by the EU under FP6 programme, with 7.5 Meuros for 4 years. Starting date: March 1st, 2007. Coordinator: Roland Person (Ifremer).People involved from SiPLAB: All. [...more]
Project terminated on March 2011